


Where Comfort's Found

by Garonne



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-06 17:18:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garonne/pseuds/Garonne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Welsh rounded on me, arms folded.</p><p>'Perhaps you could <i>kindly</i> explain to me what the hell Vecchio is doing in Inuvik Regional Hospital?'"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Comfort's Found

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to an amazing beta-reader, Desiree Armfeldt, who made this story so much better than it was to start out with.
> 
> N.B.: "Girl Guider" is Canadian for the adult volunteers who work with Girl Guide troops.

.. .. ..

Lieutenant Welsh ambushed me as soon as I arrived at the 2-7.

"My office, please, Constable."

I complied, not unhappy to have an excuse to put off seeing Ray for another few minutes. I had scarcely closed the office door behind me when Welsh rounded on me, arms folded.

"Perhaps you could _kindly_ explain to me what the hell Vecchio is doing in Inuvik Regional Hospital?"

My jaw dropped.

 _My_ Ray Vecchio? I almost said, and caught myself just in time. In any case, come to think of it, the idea of the real Ray Vecchio being in Inuvik was just as incredible.

"I wasn't aware that he was," I said carefully. I had been so surprised by the mention of Inuvik that the word 'hospital' had only just registered. I felt my mouth go dry. "What happened -- is he -- ?"

Welsh was still scowling at me. "You tell me. First I know is, I get this phone call from Payroll and Records, wanting to know if he was there on police business, and should we be paying the hospital bill."

That word again. It made a cold sweat spring up in the palms of my hands. They were folded behind my back, and now I found I was digging my fingernails into my flesh. I forced myself to remain calm. 

"Is he badly injured? What happened to him?" I was already imagining Ray with a gunshot wound in the chest, bleeding to death, or stabbed in the stomach, or in a coma after some horrible accident.

Welsh shrugged. I guessed he was worried too, and hiding it with anger. 

"I don't know. What I do know is, I better get some explanations here, and fast."

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know anything about this."

"I thought you were in on this." He was squinting at me, his voice loaded with suspicion. "In fact, I was sure you must be up there with him." 

I shook my head. "I came here to see him today, in fact." The thought of Ray being in hospital had driven everything else from my mind, but now it all came flooding back: the reason I had been so apprehensive about coming to see him, the disturbed, uncomfortable state of affairs between us. What if he really was seriously injured? When I thought about how we had parted last time we saw each other --

Francesca stuck her head around the door just then. I vaguely registered the smile she trained on me. 

"Hi, Fraser."

"Well?" Welsh demanded, before I could respond.

The smile vanished, and Francesca turned to him. 

"Same as ten minutes ago. Nobody's picking up the phone."

Welsh groaned. "Nobody's picking up -- What the hell kind of hospital is this, anyway?"

I realized they were talking about Inuvik Regional Hospital, and felt compelled to defend the place I had spent such a significant portion of my childhood. "There certainly isn't a full-time receptionist. There are only a dozen or so beds, you know."

"You know the place?" 

"Intimately."

It was surreal to think of Ray in the place I had spent so much time, recovering from broken legs, broken arms, hockey accidents, sledding accidents... It hadn't been dignified by the name hospital then, but was a humble clinic.

"We did get a fax, though," Francesca added. It was only then that I noticed the sheet of paper in her hand. She handed it to Welsh. "Hospital bill. The only thing they're charging for is a bed, a plaster cast and a pair of crutches."

"May I -- ?" I snatched the fax from the Lieutenant before he could answer, ignoring the surprise that flitted across his face. My gaze flew down the page, and relief flooded through me. Only a broken leg. Thank God.

Welsh was looking at me in a rather peculiar fashion, and I realized I had said the last few words aloud.

I cleared my throat. "It appears Ray is not too seriously injured after all. However, as to the reason for his presence there -- "

"Get back on the phone, Ms Vecchio," Welsh said.

Francesca didn't move. She was staring at me. "Didn't you know Ray was in Canada, Fraser?"

I smoothed down an eyebrow, trying to think of an answer. I was extremely reluctant to become involved in a discussion about why Ray and I had not been in contact for the past three days.

"Ms Vecchio!"

Francesca huffed, and flounced out.

"All right, I guess you're innocent in this, Constable," Welsh said. "But Vecchio will have some explaining to do when he deigns to haul his sorry ass back down here."

It seemed I was dismissed, but I was reluctant to leave. Welsh might be willing to wait, but I wanted to know right now what Ray was up to. I wanted to probe Welsh for information without giving away the fact that I had been avoiding Ray for three days.

Welsh noticed I was still standing there. 

"You waiting for me to say 'dismissed'?"

"Weren't you surprised not to see Ray this morning or yesterday?" I said cautiously.

"I gave him a coupla days off. You know... the Baring case."

Oh, I knew all about the Baring case and the effect it had had on Ray.

"Didn't expect him to leave the country, though," Welsh added.

Francesca reappeared in the office doorway. "Inyuk... that hospital on the phone, Lieu." Her eyes were wide and shocked, and my heart went cold. "Ray's not there any more -- they say he's vanished. They say he can't walk, but he's vanished without a wheelchair."

Welsh hurried for the telephone.

.. .. ..

Five minutes later, Welsh was back behind his desk, with Dewey, Huey and me lined up in front of him. I found I was twisting the brim of my hat with my hands, and forced myself to relax.

"...signs of a struggle in Vecchio's hospital room," Welsh was saying. "And this guy on the telephone seemed to think it was unlikely Vecchio could get very far by himself."

"Maybe he hopped," said Francesca, who was hovering by the door.

"So now we don't even know whether Vecchio went to Canada under his own steam or not, or what the hell is going on." Welsh drummed his fingers on the legal pad on his desk. "What do we know about his whereabouts since he left the station on Tuesday? Which was... at about eight in the evening, right?" 

He looked at me, and I nodded.

"Eight oh five," I said, and in my mind's eye I could see the clock on the wall above Ray's desk, and Ray sitting under it, his t-shirt soaked in blood that wasn't his own. His face had been grey and set in stone, and he hadn't even seemed to notice my approach. I remembered standing there, feeling the blood drain from my own face, and wondering what on earth had happened at the end of the Baring case. What had I been thinking, leaving Ray to work the case alone? Why had I allowed myself to spend the past week tied up at the Consulate discussing gifts for German ambassadors and entertaining delegations of Girl Guiders?

I had put my hand on Ray's shoulder, and he'd looked up lethargically, and then when he saw me, sprung to his feet.

"Fraser," he'd said. "Fraser, let's get out of here."

Which we did, taking Ray's car, and stopping off at the Consulate for Diefenbaker. We had only intended to stay there for a few minutes, but in the event -- one might say events had taken a turn which --

Welsh's voice recalled me to the present.

"We need to figure out what day he flew to Canada, if he did even fly. Let's narrow it down first. When was the last time you saw him, Constable?"

"I -- " I shut my eyes for a moment, picturing my dimly lit office. I saw Ray's flushed, angry face and heard his anguished whisper. _I'm sorry, Fraser, I just... I have to get outta here, okay? Fresh air... I'm sorry._ "Three days ago, at the Consulate."

"You haven't seen him since Tuesday?" Welsh had -- certainly unconsciously -- adopted the voice of a police officer interviewing a suspect. He even had a pen in his hand.

I nodded.

"At what time?"

In my mind's eye, I could still see Ray's poker-stiff figure walk away down the dark, silent corridor -- run away, more like. 

"A little after three o'clock in the morning."

I could practically feel the surprise that filled the room.

"Wednesday morning," I clarified.

Welsh seemed to gather himself. "Did he leave by car?"

"Yes... I don't know," I said helplessly. "The following morning, his car was gone from the place where he'd parked it -- where I'd parked it, I mean."

"But you didn't actually see him out of the building?"

"No," I said, knowing this would seem to them to be out-of-character for me -- as indeed it was.

"Did you guys have an argument or something?" Dewey asked.

I nodded. It wasn't a lie, I told myself. We didn't have an argument, but we did have something, whatever that something had been. I still wasn't sure.

Welsh looked thoughtful. Disturbingly so. 

"At three in the morning?" he said, and I suddenly wished he weren't quite so perceptive.

I deliberately schooled my face into its blankest possible expression. "Yes, sir."

"All right," said Welsh. "Huey, Dewey, get on the phone to the airport. And send someone around to break into Vecchio's apartment."

"I have a key," I said without thinking, and then bit my lip, too late to take the words back.

Welsh was looking at me thoughtfully again.

In fact I had had the key for many months now, initially to feed Ray's turtle while was he was away giving evidence in a federal case in Ohio. It was a perfectly innocent fact, and it had nothing to do with what might or might not have happened between Ray and me on Tuesday night. At least, it had meant nothing much at the time, but now, with Welsh's eyes on me and Ray missing, it felt steeped in significance.

"Right," said Welsh. "Get over there then, Constable."

.. .. ..

I stood in the center of Ray's living room, inhaling deeply. I tried to concentrate on the task at hand, which was to attempt to determine who else might have been in Ray's apartment recently and exactly how long ago. But all I could smell was Ray: gel and sweat, coffee and aftershave. I was overcome by a particularly vivid sensation: Ray standing pressed up against me, my hands on his hips and my nose buried in his neck, breathing in his smell. He brought a hand up to my chin, lifting my chin so that our mouths were level and leaning in to --

I shook myself. That was no memory, only my over-active imagination. I had only been that close to him once, only once had I kissed him. We hadn't been on our feet, nor in Ray's apartment. We had been lying on my narrow cot at the Consulate, but --

 _Stop that. It's not productive._ I took another deep breath, and turned around slowly on the spot. I would have to rely on my eyes instead of my sense of smell.

Several of Ray's coats were hanging behind the door, and one of his jackets was slung over the back of a chair, as though he had just thrown it there -- as though he had just stepped through the door with me.

I continued to turn on the spot, more details of the room jumping out at me. 

Ray's sofa, two feet away, recalling to mind years of Friday nights sitting with six inches of air between Ray and me. 

The door to Ray's bedroom, where in fact I'd been several times, for the most frustratingly innocuous reasons: to fetch a hanger, to continue a conversation with him while he searched for socks and shoes, to look out the window...

Ray's old rug, covering his dancing steps -- how often had I wondered how he would react if I asked him to teach me to dance. Most likely he would correctly assume that I already knew. Ray seemed convinced I knew how to do everything -- except what to do when he stared at me in my darkened office, eyes wide and shocked, and I hadn't the faintest idea what to say or do to make things better.

A car backfired in the street and brought me out of my daze.

 _Quick march, left right, left right,_ I repeated under my breath, and crossed the room to the kitchen. The milk in the fridge was four days old, the sports section of the Chicago Tribune on the sideboard was five days old, and the receipts and parking tickets shoved under the mug tree were all over a week old. I nibbled on a piece of moldy bread that was lying on the counter, and judged it to be three or four days old too. The whole constituted a trail of negative evidence: appearances suggested he'd left on Wednesday morning, but there was nothing to disprove the idea that he could have been here as recently as moments before I arrived. 

I couldn't tell how long it had been since the turtle last received any attention, but it did seem hungrier than usual when I fed it. Then I headed for the fridge again, intending to empty it of anything too out-of-date for even Ray to eat. It wouldn't be the first time I performed the task. Ray seemed to have a blind spot when it came to stale milk and moldy cheddar. He hadn't voiced any objections the first time I'd decalcified his drying rack or poured white vinegar down his kitchen sink, and some stupid part of me took an inordinate pleasure in doing it. It felt like I was actually living with him, even if I wasn't getting to enjoy the sharing-a-bed side of things.

My hand was closing around a can of out-of-date Cheez Whiz when my brain caught up with my muscles. If Ray had actually been kidnapped, I might be tampering with a crime scene. If Ray were in mortal danger up in the Territories --

I pushed that thought away. It was foolish to extrapolate such an idea from the sketchy facts I had. It wasn't as though Welsh had sent me to Ray's apartment with latex gloves and evidence bags. I should trust the judgement of people who were not as emotionally comprised as I was.

I closed the fridge, and stepped back into the main part of the living room. I continued my tour of the apartment, trying to pretend that a stranger lived here, and that this was a routine investigation.

I was about to abandon the search when something caught my eye: a square of green plastic about the size of a credit card, half-hidden down the side of Ray's sofa. It was one of those loyalty cards for a coffee shop, promising a free cappuccino once one had collected ten stamps. The name Alex Powell was printed on the card, and the coffee shop was on Randolph Street, a location I was ashamed to find I wasn't familiar with.

Who was the mysterious Mr. Powell? A friend of Ray's whom he somehow managed to invite over to his apartment during the few hours a week he wasn't at work or asleep or with me? It seemed unlikely.

I slipped the card into my pocket, and let myself out of the apartment. I stopped on the way to shine a flashlight into Ray's mailbox, and found several days' worth of mail.

At the diner on the corner of Ray's street, I bought myself a falafel sandwich, and walked back to the Consulate to eat it, and to collect Diefenbaker. Constable Turnbull was sitting at his desk in the hallway, carefully and meticulously extracting the staples from a pile of forms, and separating the pages into neat piles.

I stared at him for a moment, and then decided I didn't particularly want to inquire into the matter. I just wanted to barrel past him as quickly as possible and hide away in my office. I had only taken a few steps, however, when he looked up and beamed at me.

"Good afternoon, Constable Fraser. I took a message for you, from Ms Vecchio at the 27th District, Chicago Police Department."

I stopped short. News of Ray!

"I have it here somewhere." He began to move his piles of paper around. "It was at 11:27 precisely that she called. I remember, you see, because it was just before I usually water the begonias, although I do wonder whether you haven't been watering them recently as well, Constable Fraser, because the earth was really surprisingly damp, given the recent dry spell -- "

Fortunately, I could see my name written across the top page of Turnbull's yellow notepad. The man does have excellent, clear handwriting, I'll grant him that. My gaze flew down the page while Turnbull recounted his trials and tribulations with the geraniums on the kitchen windowsill.

_F. Vecchio for Const. F.  
R. Vecchio on Air Canada flight 521 ORD-YQB Wed 3 July 13:10_

I bent closer, certain I must have misread. Ray had left Chicago on a commercial flight? Therefore of his own free will and not under force. And -- my eyes returned to the airport codes -- he'd flown to _Quebec_?

.. .. ..

"Hey, Fraser."

I was sitting at Ray's desk, bagging and labelling the evidence I had taken from Ray's apartment. I looked up to find Francesca sashaying towards me, clutching a sheet of paper. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on her face, my standard procedure when it came to holding a conversation with her.

"Good afternoon, Francesca."

"I found that chick you were looking for." 

She perched on the edge of Ray's desk, directly in front of me, making it extremely difficult to keep my gaze above her neckline. I scooted my chair back half a foot, and tilted my head back. 

"Which lady was that?"

"She's a Canadian. You could probably have found her more easily yourself -- though I mean, I was happy to help, of course. Anytime." She gave me what the more innocent and slightly younger version of me might have described as a friendly smile. "Anyway, she applied for a student visa a coupla years back, so we got her on file. I mean, there are tons of people with that name, but only one who flew into and out of Chicago recently. And guess what, Fraser?"

I still hadn't quite managed to figure out who the lady in question was, but Francesca didn't wait for a response on my part in any case.

"She was on the same flight out of Chicago as Ray!"

She slapped a sheet of paper down on the desk in front of me, giving me a safe area to which to lower my gaze and relieve the crick in my neck. I was looking at the file of a woman named Alex Powell, and suddenly what Francesca was saying became a lot clearer, and what might have happened to Ray became a lot murkier.

I was looking down at the photograph of a woman who was vaguely familiar to me. She was thirty-two years old, according to her date of birth, born in Edmonton, Alberta, one meter sixty-three in height -- and really very beautiful indeed. Three years ago, when the photograph was taken, she had had short blond curls, and an attractive scatter of freckles across her nose. When I'd seen her at the Canadian Consulate a week ago, she'd had slightly longer blond curls, and being free from the constraints of visa photograph requirements had allowed her to display a charming smile. What's more, she had been wearing the uniform of a Canadian Girl Guide leader. I remembered quite clearly seeing her in the midst of the delegation of Girl Guiders in Chicago for the annual North American Scouting and Guiding conference. I had even exchanged a few polite remarks with her about the weather forecast.

And this was someone with whom Ray had flown to Quebec. Someone he'd been entertaining in his apartment. I stared down at the photograph, imagining Ray smiling into those blue eyes, and running a finger down the delicate line of her jaw.

Francesca was still speaking, something about Alex Powell's loyalty card being for a coffee shop in Calgary, Alberta. I cleared my throat.

"Thank you, Francesca. You've been extremely helpful."

"Anytime, Fraser," she said, giving me that smile again.

She walked away, and I sat there without moving. I could feel Diefenbaker pressed up against my legs. He seemed to sense how hurt I felt.

Unjustifiably hurt, of course. I had no claim on Ray. He had a perfect right to go wherever he wished, and with whomever he wished. But the fact that he had gone to _Canada_ made it all seem terribly personal. Why couldn't he have gone to Mexico, or Puerto Rico, if he had to run off with a beautiful blonde?

Moreover, as though to add insult to injury, this was a beautiful blonde he had met through his association with me. He must have fallen into conversation with her at the Consulate sometime during the previous week.

After a few minutes I climbed to my feet and went to knock on the door of Welsh's office.

Welsh was looking put out. 

"You still hanging around here, Constable?"

"Sir, I -- "

"Clear out, go home."

"But Ray -- "

His scowl intensified. "Case closed. Turns out Vecchio took off to Canada with some chick. He'll have more than a broken leg when I get hold of him."

He was voicing thoughts very similar to those which had been running through my head five minutes previously. Now, however, I found myself arguing with him. 

"But sir, the signs of a struggle in the hospital room -- "

Welsh shrugged. "Maybe he knocked over a vase of flowers himself when he was trying to hop out."

"Sir, the idea of a -- " I swallowed. " -- a romantic escapade in Quebec is hardly consistent with a hospitalisation two thousand miles away in Inuvik. Something has happened to Ray." 

"I'll admit the possibility, Constable. But I got nothing to justify anything more than a missing persons report. Come back to me with something solid, okay?"

He gave me a stern look, and I realized suddenly that I wasn't the only person concerned about Ray. But Welsh was only worried that Ray had gone and done something reckless, blowing off steam after what he'd been through at the end of the Baring case. Welsh didn't know the half of it. He didn't know what an idiot I'd been, and the extra troubles I'd heaped on Ray's head.

.. .. ..

My desk was covered with the piles of paperwork I had been trying to drown myself in over the past few days, while I'd been trying to force Ray from my mind by sheer volume of apostilles and passport renewal forms. I'd spent most of the time staring blankly at my work, and resisting the temptation to pick up the telephone and call the 2-7. Now, of course, I knew that Ray hadn't been at the station at all, but somewhere in Canada.

What had happened between the time he took a flight for Quebec of his own free will, and the time he turned up injured in Inuvik three days later -- only to disappear immediately from his hospital room? Had he been kidnapped, or had he been running away from someone?

It gave me a horrible tight feeling in my chest to imagine Ray in trouble somewhere in the Northwest Territories, without me there to help him. Part of me longed to fly straight to Inuvik, part of me thought I should start by following the trail to Quebec. I could do neither: I was trapped here in Chicago, with the infuriating task of investigating at a distance.

At least now I had a lead to work on. I pulled Alexandra Powell's file towards me. What exactly was her involvement? Was it entirely unrelated to Ray's subsequent troubles, or had she somehow tricked him into following her to Quebec, and beyond? I could already hear Ray's voice. 

_But she's a Girl Scout, Fraser! Of course I believed her!_

After all, he also seemed to believe the old chestnut that Mounties never lie.

I ran my eye down the list of Girl Guiders Turnbull had furnished me with, wondering whether any of the others could possibly be involved in Ray's disappearance. I found it difficult to countenance a nationwide criminal conspiracy within the Girl Guiding movement. Perhaps it was just Powell and persons unknown?

I imagined Ray's voice again, and it made me smile in spite of myself. 

_I just can't shake them off, Fraser. They're Girl Scouts, for Chrissake! You got nothing on them when it comes to tracking, believe you me._

I pushed the files away and pinched the bridge of my nose, my growing headache now threatening to overcome me. I was unable to prevent my mind from reliving the events of the past few days, trying to work out what I could have done differently, how I could have made events take a different course.

On the Tuesday when I'd last seen Ray, I had spent the afternoon listening to Inspector Thatcher and Constable Turnbull speculating on the German ambassador's taste in cufflinks. That was followed by a discussion of the most suitable color for the new reception room carpet. I had sat there playing house while Ray -- Ray was in the middle of a bloodbath.

When I'd finally escaped from Inspector Thatcher's office, I had called the 2-7 to see if Ray had made any progress in his case. When we'd spoken the previous evening, he had been on the brink of finally tracking down a key suspect.

Francesca had answered Ray's phone. 

"Yeah, he's here... No, he's with the Lieutenant. Listen, Fraser -- it might be a good idea if you dropped over here. Maybe drive him home or something?"

The idea of Ray needing to be driven home was so unexpected and disturbing that I rushed straight to the station. I found Ray sitting at his desk in a t-shirt soaked with someone else's blood. 

I put my hand on his shoulder, and he looked up lethargically, and then when he saw me, sprang to his feet.

"Fraser," he said. "Fraser, let's get out of here."

And we did.

Ray was strangely silent in the car on the way to the Consulate -- and under normal circumstances Ray was never, _ever_ , able to keep his mouth shut when I was driving. I manoeuvred carefully into a space half a block a way from the Consulate, instead of double-parking outside the front door, and Ray still said nothing.

Instead of saying, "I'll only be a minute," I found myself suggesting he come in with me, not wanting to leave him alone in the car.

He followed me through the deserted hallway to my office, and stood leaning in the doorway, watching me. Dief seemed to sense that something was amiss, and went to snuffle at Ray's feet instead of jumping up at him.

I pulled a clean Henley from the freshly ironed pile in my closet, and turned to offer it silently to Ray.

His stony expression softened, and for a split second I feared he was on the verge of tears. The fear was instantly followed by guilt, because surely a medical professional would assure me that crying was probably the best thing he could do just now. It was incredibly selfish of me to want him not to merely because I wouldn't know how to deal with it.

After a moment, though, he summoned a grin. 

"Thanks, Frase." 

He took the Henley, and quickly stripped off his own bloody t-shirt. I took it out of his hands, some grim part of me wondering why it took a massacre to have Ray half-naked in my room.

I ran my gaze over him in the most clinical way I could. 

"You're not injured?"

"Why? You looking to slather me in moose placenta again?" He jammed the shirt on over his head. It hung loosely on him. "Sorry to disappoint you."

I was still holding his own shirt. He noticed my indecision.

"Dump it, Fraser. I never want to see it again." He looked down at himself. "I'm gonna have to throw these pants out too."

He was speaking in the most matter-of-fact voice possible. I couldn't help but stare at him, studying his face anxiously. My throat felt tight with concern.

He looked up and caught my eye, and suddenly his hands were balling up, and he was yelling at me.

"What the _fuck_ , Fraser? Why the fuck do you have to go looking at me like that, just when I got everything under control. Why the hell -- ?"

I thought he was going to hit me, but instead he sat down suddenly on my cot. He was shaking.

I stood there, frozen. 

After a long, horrible minute, he began to speak without looking up. His voice was calm.

"They were just kids, you know. Baring started them young -- lookout at eight or nine, courier at twelve, full-blown drug dealer at sixteen. Usual set-up, you know?"

I knew very well indeed. I had spent more than enough time with the Chicago PD for that.

Ray was still talking. "There must have been, I don't know, ten or twelve kids at the warehouse this afternoon. Welsh says four bodies, and five more hospitalized, but it felt like about forty at the time. Says it wasn't actually anything to do with us -- me and Smith and Riordan, I mean. Supposedly the guys were all on edge in the place already anyway, but I dunno. I can think of one pretty good reason for people to start shooting already -- wondering about who ratted them out to the cops that just showed up."

"Spark to a tinderbox," I murmured.

"Yeah." He looked up at me. "Thank God you weren't there, Fraser."

I dropped to my knees beside him. "I'm sorry, Ray, I'm sorry, I should have -- "

"You kidding me? I have nightmares about you getting shot in some stupid, pointless scenario." He reached out and grabbed a fistful of my tunic. It felt like an attack and a caress at the same time. "You drive me crazy, Fraser, you know that?"

He was looming over me, his face intense, his eyes fixed on mine, so very close to me. My heart was pounding. My mouth was dry.

Then he let go of me, and made an odd, ineffectual sort of gesture, as though trying to smooth down my tunic. He turned his head away.

I got to my feet, and stepped away, tugging my tunic back into place. I looked down at Ray, and rubbed the back of my neck.

My original plan had been to drive Ray home, and then to stay there for a little while, make sure he was all right, perhaps get a takeout. I'd thought we would watch ESPN, and eat chow mein, and I'd pretend not to see him slipping spring rolls to Diefenbaker. It would be like a hundred other evenings we'd spent together, and the familiarity would be comforting to Ray.

Suddenly, I decided something quite different was in order.

"How about spaghetti and meatballs for dinner?" I suggested. "I'm afraid the tomatoes and the meatballs will be from a can, but -- "

He looked up at me, temporarily distracted by his surprise. 

"You mean here? You want to eat dinner here?"

I nodded.

His face broke into a smile, and that was enough to make my own heart lift.

"Sure," he said, springing to his feet. "I can eat meatballs out of a can anytime, Fraser."

Ray and I tended to spend very little time at the Consulate. It was only subsidiarily where I lived, and primarily where I worked. Ray's apartment had a comfortable couch and cable television, and professional paperwork only spilled over into it when he chose to let it.

Tonight, though, the consulate was empty. Everyone had gone home, and we had the place to ourselves. I thought that to Ray it might feel like being away on vacation, somewhat like the feeling of camping out. When I saw Ray begin to dance around the kitchen, I decided I'd been right.

The consulate kitchen was a lot bigger than Ray's. Sometimes it was occupied by teams of caterers called in for some consular event or other, but mostly it was very much underused. It contained every sort of utensil the Sears catalogue contained, and many I'd never even heard of. Ray seemed to have been transported to some sort of culinary heaven, and I was content to follow his orders, watching him out of the corner of my eye and hiding my smile.

I'd been surprised when I first discovered how well Ray could cook. It seemed a dreadful waste for him to be living on a diet of fast food and microwave meals, but he'd just shrugged when I said as much.

"Not worth the effort for one."

I suspected that he had ended up being the cook in his and Stella's relationship, but never asked.

Myself, I have never been very picky about what I eat. When one is used to nothing being fresh but the meat, food becomes more of a necessity than a pleasure.

That evening, dinner took a little longer and was a little fancier with Ray at the helm than it would have been had I been alone, but finally we sat down to plates of steaming hot spaghetti and meatballs drenched in a sauce of Ray's devising.

"Smells good, don't it?" said Ray, sliding into the chair opposite me and attacking with gusto. "God, I'm starved."

"I salute your culinary skills, Ray."

"Hey, you haven't tasted it yet."

We ate slowly, keeping up a lively conversation at the same time. It made a pleasant change to be sitting at the table with only each other for entertainment, instead of in front of the television. We talked about all kinds of things, from my grandmother's collection of fish flies to Ray's recent visits to the movie theater. Ray even seemed to be paying attention to some of my choicer anecdotes.

There was no clock in the kitchen, and when I looked at my watch once we'd finished eating I found it was past eleven. The disadvantage of being at the Consulate suddenly, belatedly occurred to me. I had slept on Ray's couch on many occasions, but my waking up there was quite a different matter from Ray being woken on the Consulate sitting room couch if Constable Turnbull came in early.

In any case, I really did not want to leave Ray alone tonight.

We washed the dishes together. Ray didn't even attempt to suggest leaving the plates for the morning, and I told him that spending three hours in Canada must have been a good influence on him, earning me the pointed end of a soup ladle in the ribs.

Finally everything was restored to its usual pristine state. I turned to Ray, and found him already looking at me. An awkward silence fell between us. The shadow had returned to his eyes.

"I -- left my keys in your office," he said, and hurried out.

When I reached the office myself, Ray's keys were still lying on my desk, and he was sitting on my cot, his shoulders hunched up and his head down.

The room was filled with warm, stale July air. It felt uncomfortably close. Ray had turned on the lamp by my desk, but its light only reached a portion of the room, and his face was in shadow.

After a moment's hesitation, I sat down beside him. I wished I could just sling my arm casually around his shoulders, the way he so often did to me.

He turned to me, and the next thing I knew he was in my arms, and I was somehow in his at the same time. His face was buried in my shoulder, but he wasn't making any noise. He was just holding me, his warm torso pressed up against mine.

We sat like that for a long time. Finally I felt him grow heavy on my shoulder, and his head began to slip down my arm as he drifted off to sleep.

I manoeuvred us carefully so that we were lying on my narrow cot, Ray still pressed up against me. I managed to sit up and pull off my boots and his shoes without disturbing him. He didn't stir even when I lay back down beside him.

I hadn't intended to fall asleep, but I must have done so nonetheless. When I woke up, Ray was wrapped around me. He had somehow turned so that he was facing me. The desk-lamp was still on, and I could see his face up close to mine, the lines that ran across his forehead, the stubble that was thickest along the line of his jaw, a freckle on his eyelid. I could have lain there for hours, just looking at him.

Then his eyes flickered open. He looked puzzled for a moment, until he figured out where he was. I was waiting for him to tense up and draw away, but he only smiled.

"Hey, Fraser."

I opened my mouth, but nothing seemed to want to come out. Ray was still grinning at me, looking as relaxed and drowsy as I felt.

Our legs were tangled together and my hand was on his shoulder. It began to move slowly, almost of its own accord. Then my hand was on the back of his neck, pulling him towards me, and I was leaning forward, till our mouths met. His whole body made a small, startling jerking motion, but he didn't pull away. Instead his mouth opened, and I felt him sigh against my lips.

My entire body was infused with electricity. I was humming with it, intoxicated with the idea of finally touching Ray, of feeling his lips against mine, hard and gentle at the same time. 

I let my tongue dart out into his open mouth, and the hand resting on my upper arm tightened convulsively. I only had one arm free -- the other was trapped underneath us -- and my free hand was restless, running over his shoulders, stroking his hair, caressing the strands at the nape of his neck.

He was still wearing my Henley, but it had become rucked up during the night. When I moved my hand down his body, the tips of my fingers came into direct contact with the skin of his waist, just above his left hip. I heard his breath catch in his throat.

My own breath was coming so fast I was almost panting, and my heart was racing. I forced myself to take a long deep breath, and allowed my hands to roam over his lower back. His skin was hot to the touch.

We were kissing in earnest now, sloppily and fervently, and my whole body was crying out for more.

I drew back, reluctantly, temporarily, and opened my eyes.

"Ray," I whispered, the first words either of us had uttered in minutes. "Ray -- "

His eyes were wide and almost shocked looking, staring at me in the dim light.

I ached for his touch. 

"May I -- " 

I didn't know how to say it, so I let my hand fall to the waistband of his pants, inches from the erection I could feel pressing against my hip.

He tensed and jerked away, and my own body tensed too, in shock and dismay.

He wasn't meeting my gaze. I could see his throat move as he swallowed. 

"Frase, I -- "

Then he was scrambling past me, and rolling off the cot onto his feet.

I followed him, and stood there as he turned to face me. My stomach burned as though I'd just been kicked in the gut.

Ray's faced was flushed. I couldn't tell whether he was angry or embarrassed or something else entirely.

"I'm sorry, Frase, I just... I have to get outta here, okay? Fresh air... I'm sorry, okay?"

He stumbled to the door, then came to a stop and turned back.

"Shoes," he mumbled, peering around the room.

I had lined them up neatly under the bed with my boots. He spotted them, and shoved them on without doing up the laces.

"Night, Fraser," he said with his back to me, fumbling for the door handle.

I couldn't seem to make my vocal cords work.

I stood in the doorway of my office, and watched him leave. My eyes were fixed on his poker-stiff back as he hurried away from me, until finally he disappeared around the corner.

.. .. ..

I had spent the following three days burying myself in paperwork at the Consulate, deliberately not looking at the telephone, wanting to call the 2-7 and not doing so -- and all the while Ray was in Canada, without me and in danger.

Now I had one lead, Alexandra Powell, and no official help from the 2-7.

The following morning, however, Constable Turnbull surprised me by coming up trumps.

When I returned with Dief from our early morning walk, Turnbull was already at his desk, sharpening his pencils. He sprang to his feet when I entered.

"I have something here that may interest you, Constable Fraser."

I eyed him warily.

"As you requested, I ran some background checks on our recent visitors from the Girl Guiding movement."

I relaxed. Ray Kowalski's disappearance was the only topic of conversation I was willing to entertain at the moment.

Turnbull went on, "They are all fine, upstanding citizens, of course, as must surely go without saying."

I wondered whether Turnbull had been a Boy Scout.

"I did go into a little more depth in the case of Ms Alexandra Powell, as she seemed to be the individual who interested you the most. We have nothing on her, of course, but her brother has quite a record. Armed robbery, breaking and entering, robbery aggravated by violence..."

I felt myself relax ever so slightly. I knew it! I knew there was some sort of criminal connection. I knew Ray wasn't simply -- I could let myself think it now -- running away from me.

"Of course Ms Powell herself is surely above suspicion," Turnbull added.

"Indeed?"

In answer, he gave me a three-fingered salute. "On my honour, I promise that I will do my best -- "

"You were a Boy Scout, I take it, Constable?" I said, thinking to myself that Ms Powell wouldn't be the first person to break an oath. Sadly, I am reminded on a daily basis how often human beings fail to live up to their potential for good. 

"87th Toronto Troop, deputy patrol leader." He beamed at me. "I expect you were a patrol leader, Constable Fraser?"

"Oh, we had a very small troop," I said evasively. I looked down at the neat piles of paper on his desk. "Do we have a last known whereabouts for Mr. Powell?"

"Let me see."

I was ahead of him. I had already found the pile of print-outs and was flicking through them. It seemed Ritchie Powell had been on parole in Calgary up until the end of April. For the past two months, then, he'd been a free man as regarded his movements.

Turnbull explained as much to me from memory, while I listened with one ear, and noted down a list of file references to follow up on.

"Thank you, Constable. I very much appreciate your assistance."

He beamed at me. "Oh, and you received a telephone call from the Northwest Territories while you were out." He held up a slip of yellow paper.

 _Detective Vecchio?_ I almost said, but managed to bite back my words. I didn't want to sound as though I were obsessed by the man, even if it were true, and even if Turnbull's good opinion of me seemed unshakeable.

"Thank you, Constable," I said, forcing myself to take the slip of paper instead of snatching it.

It wasn't Ray, but a Mr. Walt MacGyver with a telephone number in the Yukon -- Dawson City, if my memory served correctly. Was that where Ray had gone or been taken after vanishing from Inuvik Hospital? It was over a day's drive south of Inuvik at this time of year, but if he'd flown...

I scarcely took the time to say "May I?" before grabbing the receiver of Turnbull's telephone. I hadn't even finished entering the international dialling code, however, when the door behind me opened. Turnbull sprang to his feet.

"Good morning, sir."

I turned, and echoed Turnbull's words as soon as I saw Inspector Thatcher in the doorway.

She ignored this.

"Fraser, I need you today, so the 27th District will have to do without you." She ran a disapproving eye over the brown uniform I had donned when I had been planning to spend the morning at the airport, searching Ray's car. "I expect to see you at the front door in dress uniform in ten minutes."

"Yes, sir."

She disappeared.

Turnbull's eyes widened when I reached for the telephone again, instead of rushing away to change. He said nothing, though.

I dialled quickly. A chipper female voice answered: early twenties, Yukon native. "Hi, Fred's Diner." She was chewing gum.

"Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, calling from the Canadian Consulate in Chicago. Would it be possible to speak to Mr. Walt MacGyver, please?"

"Uh... Hang on a minute." I could hear the noise of the telephone receiver being laid down on a table. After that came a few minutes of indistinct noises of cutlery clinking on ceramic, and men's voices rumbling.

I hung on, praying that Mr. Walt MacGyver hadn't finished his breakfast yet, and was still on the premises.

Finally, I heard the receiver being picked up again, and then a male voice, mid-forties, heavy smoker, originally from British Colombia or Alberta. "Uh, hi, someone looking for me?"

"Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, calling from the Canadian Consulate in Chicago. I believe you tried to contact me this morning, Mr. MacGyver."

"You're B. Fraser, then?"

"That's correct, sir." 

"You're in Chicago again already? That was pretty damn quick!"

I blinked. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't follow."

The man on the other end of the phone line now sounded as puzzled as I felt. "You're not the guy I had in my truck couple of days back?"

"I don't believe so."

"Uh huh." The man appeared to stop and think for a moment. I could hear him breathing. "Yeah, I thought you might not be. That would have been R. Fraser, wouldn't it?"

For a brief but confused moment I thought he was referring to my father. Then the explanation occurred to me. "You gave a lift some days back to a man who introduced himself as Ray?"

"That's right." He sounded pleased we were finally figuring things out. "He left a bag in the back of my truck. I open it up and there's a shirt on top with B. Fraser, Canadian Consulate Chicago stitched inside."

I suppressed the urge to punch the air, à la Ray. The wisdom of labelling all one's personal belongings had never been more evident, despite the derisory remarks certain persons might have made as to our no longer being in elementary school.

"It's exceedingly kind of you to go to such trouble to return the bag to its owner, Mr. MacGyver. I'm sure Ray will appreciate it very much."

"No trouble. So uh, about the bag. What should I do with it?"

I hesitated. "My colleague is in... intermittent contact with us here at the Consulate at the moment, and I'm not quite sure... Between which two points did you drive him exactly, Mr. MacGyver?"

"Dawson to Fort McPherson. He was making for Inuvik, but I had to stop and make a delivery in Fort McPherson, so your friend went on ahead."

These were familiar names, familiar places. It was so very strange and unsettling to think of Ray being there without me.

"Was he on official business?" The man sounded curious now. "I kind of got the feeling he was an American."

"Ray works in liaison with the Canadian Consulate here in Chicago," I said. I hesitated, but the temptation to probe further was too strong. "As a matter of fact, we've had some trouble recently keeping in touch with him. Any information you could give us on his condition would be much appreciated."

"Well, the guy seemed fine. Nice fellow. Not very talkative. When I asked him what he was doing all the way up here, he said he was on the run. But joking, like. At least I thought he was." He sounded doubtful now.

"He wasn't -- injured?"

"I don't think so."

I sat there for a moment, desperately jealous of this stranger, who had had the good fortune to spend -- I calculated rapidly -- twelve hours in a truck with my Ray, while I was stuck in Chicago.

Mr. MacGyver cleared his throat. "And the bag?"

"Perhaps you could be so kind as to leave it with the RCMP in Dawson City?"

"Sure, no problem."

"Thank you kindly, sir."

I hung up, deep in thought. It made sense that Ray would make for Inuvik, if lost and on the run in the North, even though it might have been more practical for him to have headed south. In my head, I could already imagine the conversation we would have when I finally found him. Ray would shrug, and say, "I asked him to take me to Inuvik. It was the only town I could remember the name of in this Godforsaken place. Well, except Yellowhorse, but he didn't seem to know that one."

And I would say patiently, "It's Yellowknife, Ray. And Whitehorse."

And Ray would make a face at me, and I would smile and take his hands and --

"Fraser!"

I leapt to my feet.

The Ice -- that is to say, Inspector Thatcher was standing in the doorway, glaring at me.

"Yes, sir, on my way, sir!"

My task for the morning turned out to consist of standing at Inspector Thatcher's shoulder and looking impressive while she gave a dressing down to the director of a painting and decorating firm responsible for the unfortunate shade of green the Consulate front door now sported.

I took advantage of the taxi-ride to the company's office to fill her in on the Powell case, and the danger a Chicago police officer had fallen into due to his association with the Consulate. A lack of official backing had never been a hindrance to me in the past, but I thought it would probably be advisable to keep the inspector abreast of matters all the same. 

"I will need to put out an APB on Powell in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, and get access to flight records across the northwest." I still didn't know how or why Ray had ended up in Dawson City, but at the moment I was more interested in what had happened after he disappeared from the hospital in Inuvik.

Inspector Thatcher was frowning. "Surely it's a matter for Chicago PD?"

"They don't believe -- " I cleared my throat. "They haven't yet had an opportunity to see the most recent, compelling evidence, and the case is urgent."

"All right, whatever," she said as we arrived at our destination. "Hand me the paint swatches, Fraser."

.. .. ..

As soon as we returned to the consulate I went straight into the main office to use the computer. I ignored Turnbull, who was making faces in the mirror while he polished it.

I sat down at the desk, powered up the computer, and was confronted with a police report that had triggered one of the alerts I'd asked Turnbull to set up. A warrant had been issued that morning by Yellowknife Municipal Police for the arrest of Ritchie Powell. He was wanted for attempted murder.

I stared at the screen, my heart beginning to thump uncomfortably fast. The victim was described as 1m80, 73 kg, white male, blond hair, blue eyes. No name or ID. The other details in the report were frustratingly sketchy.

I could feel a sort of panic rising up inside me. Could Ray have flown from Inuvik to Yellowknife at some point yesterday, just in time to suffer a murder attempt by Powell last night? My first impulse was to telephone Yellowknife Municipal Police and give them an impassioned lecture on the importance of fully filled out police reports and the value of comprehensive databases in inter-force judicial cooperation.

I took a deep breath, focussing on the word 'attempted'. Ray was still alive.

Welsh and Thatcher would have to put their full resources on the case now. I would start by flying to Yellowknife, and joining Ray there. 

I was reaching for the telephone to contact Yellowknife when it rang. I was already on edge, and I was so startled by the sound that I froze. Turnbull swooped in.

"Good afternoon, Canadian Consulate in Chicago, Constable Renfield Turnbull speaking. Bonjour, Consulat du Canada -- oh hello! How nice to hear from you."

Turnbull grinned and nodded for a while, while I sat there boiling with frustration. Ray was in danger, he had already been attacked twice, Powell was on the loose, and some idiot was tying up the phone line. Then something Turnbull said jerked me out of my daze.

"So you're not on the run from known bank robber and violent criminal Ritchie Powell?"

I sprang to my feet.

"Constable Fraser and I thought you were... well of course, I have to give him credit for the deduction. I've only been doing the leg work on this one." He gave a sort of giggle.

I was desperately trying not to tear the receiver from his hands.

"Constable Turnbull," I said through gritted teeth. "If I may -- "

"So who did kidnap you, then, if you don't mind my asking?" His eyes widened. "Oh, I see."

"Turnbull," I said more loudly. "Turnbull. Turnbull!"

Turnbull appeared to notice me for the first time. "One moment please, Detective Vecchio." He covered the receiver with his hand. "Yes, Constable?"

I held out my hand. 

"I wonder if I might speak to Detective Vecchio, please, Constable?"

"Why, of course."

I snatched the receiver. 

"Ray? You're not in Yellowknife?"

I heard his voice, distant and crackling. "I'm in Inuvik, Fraser. Why the hell would I be in Yellowknife?" I suddenly understood the meaning of the phrase 'to feel weak at the knees'.

"You're in Inuvik," I repeated, sinking down into the chair.

"Yeah, I been here since Friday. Listen Fraser, what's all this stuff about me being kidnapped by a violent criminal?"

"I -- nothing." My mind was whirling. My whole theory seemed to be falling down like a house of cards. I swallowed, and said carefully, "Ray, why are you in Inuvik?"

There was a pause so long I wondered whether we'd been cut off.

"Good question, Fraser," he said, and paused again. "Why am I even in Canada, you might ask."

I cleared my throat. "I -- I've managed to follow your trail to a certain extent, Ray. Quebec, then a gap, then Dawson, Fort McPherson..."

"Quebec, huh? Guess you know about Alex, then."

I nodded, then remembered he couldn't see me. 

"Yes."

He sighed. "Yeah, that didn't work out too well. Guess I was unfair on her."

"Unfair on her, Ray?"

"Yeah, I mean taking off with her like that when I actually -- "

Actually _what_ , I thought, but Ray had broken off.

"This Ritchie Powell guy her brother or something, then?"

"That's correct," I said, wishing I could have said 'husband'.

"Yeah, she said something about that. Spent most of the time moaning about her life, to be honest. Guess it can't be easy with a brother like that."

Our conversation fell into another crevasse-like awkward pause.

"Fraser? You got the Lieu and everyone thinking I'm tracking down a dangerous bank robber across Canada or something?"

"Er... not exactly."

"Turnbull seems to think I'm on the run, or escaping from kidnappers or something."

"Ah... I believe there may have been a slight misunderstanding."

"Yeah?"

There was another pause, and I wished desperately that I could see Ray. I needed very much to be able to read his body language.

He broke the silence first. "Fraser? You asked me what I was doing in Canada."

"I -- I have been wondering, Ray."

"Yeah, well..." He let out his breath in one big rush. "Well, you know, that's what I phoned to tell you. I been thinking, and -- " He stopped short, and when he started to speak again I got the feeling he wasn't saying what he'd originally intended to. "You know, I had a little time off work, Alex seemed like a nice kid -- " He broke off again. "Screw it, who am I kidding? I was running away, that's all."

_Running away from you._

"Ah," I said.

I knew that, of course. Some part of me had known that all along. I'd been clutching at straws, concentrating on Powell's record, on the supposed signs of a struggle in Ray's room, on his injury. It hurt to hear it confirmed aloud, though. And yet -- and yet --

I had never before realized how much I relied on non-verbal cues when it came to understanding what Ray was saying to me. I said, hesitantly, "You ran -- to Inuvik?"

"Crazy, huh?" He gave a peculiar sort of laugh. "Guess some part of me wants to run towards you."

I was not equipped to deal with this sort of conversation, even without Turnbull hanging onto my every word.

"Are you -- still running?" 

"I'm on crutches."

I felt my heart drop. If he was going to be deliberately obtuse about this, then I already knew how it was going to end.

But then he said, "Fraser?"

"Yes?"

"I'm not."

A strange mixture of relief and panic seemed to bubble up inside me, closing my throat. I gripped the telephone, thankful I was already sitting.

"Ray, I -- " I was very much aware of Constable Turnbull, hovering a few feet away. "Ray, we -- "

"You trying to say we should talk?"

"Yes."

He sounded serious now. "I don't wanna do that on the phone, Fraser, but it's gonna be a while before I get back to Chicago. I got this little matter of a broken leg. Little accident with a snow-mobile."

I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that. 

"Ray, it's summer."

"Hey, I know that! And let me tell you something, I'm damned disappointed there's no snow up here, Fraser. I'm feeling pretty let down here, in fact."

"Stay where you are. I can be there -- " I was already reaching for the yellow pages. " -- the day after tomorrow."

"That's a hell of a lot quicker than it took me."

"I won't be hitch-hiking," I said absently, leafing through the book to Airlines.

"I'm staying at -- "

I finished his sentence. " -- the Great Northern Hotel."

"That's right." He sounded like he was smiling. "Only hotel in town, huh? I guess you know this place pretty well."

"Yes, I do. Ray -- " I hesitated. "Reserve me a room please, would you?"

"Okay." He sounded odd, but I noticed that he wasn't rushing to say we'd only need one room.

"I should go and face Inspector Thatcher now, Ray. I'm not sure how she'll react to a sudden request for immediate leave."

I could imagine his grimace. "Good luck with that."

"Yes." I had my finger on Air Canada's telephone number now. "Do you need anything from Chicago, or -- ?"

"Nah, that's okay."

I found I was biting at my tongue, and forced myself to stop. "All right." I cleared my throat. "See you in a few days."

"Adios, Fraser."

I hung up, and turned to Turnbull. To my horror, he was looking at me as though I'd just stepped straight from the pages of one of those paperback novels he traded with Francesca Vecchio.

"I am so very pleased to see things are working out between you and Detective Vecchio."

I stared, and pondered the wisdom of trying a little speech about Ray's and my professional relationship. I decided it was much too late for that kind of misdirection.

"Thank you, Constable Turnbull."

.. .. ..

O'Hare and Toronto passed by me in a blur. Edmonton was a little closer to home. When I landed in Yellowknife it was almost midnight, and the sun was setting. I had an entire night to kill before my flight to Inuvik the next morning. I spent it sleeping badly in a hotel near the airport.

Memories of Ray swirled through my dreams, and every time I woke, my thoughts turned to our imminent meeting. I would have to face up to what I had been avoiding thinking about while I distracted myself with Ray's imaginary pursuers. I would have to face up to the way I had taken advantage of Ray at a time when his mind was already in turmoil.

I turned over on my side, now completely unable to fall asleep. It would be broad daylight in Inuvik at the moment, and I wondered how Ray was coping with the midnight sun. I wondered whether he was lying awake, whether he was thinking of me.

Finally I threw aside the bedcovers and got up. If I wasn't going to sleep anyway, I might as well go and wait at the airport.

Inuvik, when I arrived, was basking in the brief but glorious Arctic summer. My feet followed a familiar path through the town to Ray's hotel. The air was clean and sharp, and the low, flat buildings made me feel like I could breathe again. It was a world away from the sauna that was Chicago in July.

The hotel was a box-shaped wooden building not far from the river. I saw Ray as soon as I arrived. He was sitting outside on the concrete area that served as a terrace during the summer months.

He saw me too, and raised a hand in greeting. 

"Welcome to Canada, Fraser," he called as soon as I was close enough to hear him. "Hey, I've always wanted to be able to say that."

His leg was in plaster, and a pair of crutches were propped up beside him. I hated to see the evidence of his injury, but at least it spared us the ordeal of an embarrassing, awkward hug or handshake in greeting. Ray remained seated, and I took the plastic chair opposite him.

"You made it, then?" he said. "Your plane didn't get hijacked or anything?"

It was odd: only now that I knew for sure that Ray was safe, and not in any danger at all -- only now did I begin to think about the future, begin to wonder whether our friendship had survived. 

"Not this time, no."

"Great." His hands, ever restless, were playing with the corners of the newspaper lying open on the table in front of him. 

I nodded at the paper. "I see you've been keeping abreast of local news."

To my surprise, he let out a short bark of a laugh. "Oh, I already know all about local news. You should have met my nurse at the hospital! I tell you, you haven't cornered the market on pointless anecdotes, Fraser." He popped a gun-hand against his temple in a kill-me-now gesture. "I ended up hightailing it out of the place, pronto. Mrs. Hopkins here at the hotel has been mothering me."

I remembered a short, dark-haired woman, who always smelled of lavender. 

"Her mother, Mrs. Blake, was a good friend of my grandmother's."

"Yeah, she's cool. She made me go back to the hospital and check out for real. Get a painkiller prescription, apologize for stealing a pair of crutches."

"We -- I thought you'd been kidnapped," I blurted, and then wished I could take back the words.

Ray stared at me. "How'd you even know I was in the hospital?"

"Health insurance."

He groaned. "Fuck. I'm a dumbass. Am I in shit with Welsh?"

"He was somewhat surprised to hear you'd decided to use your days off to leave the country."

"I'll bet." He let his hands fall to the table. "Okay, I'll worry about that later. When's the last time you ate?"

"Uh..." I had been completely consumed by the prospect of seeing Ray again. "I had a cup of tea in Yellowknife at about six o'clock this morning."

"Come on," he said. "Time for lunch."

He struggled to his feet. I hovered a few feet away, aching to help but reluctant to touch. He seemed to be a seasoned professional on crutches already, though, and soon we were making our way slowly into the hotel.

Mrs. Hopkins was polishing the reception desk. I took a deep breath. Beeswax with a hint of lavender. Her own recipe, I imagined.

"Constable Fraser," she exclaimed when she saw me, dropping her dustcloth. "How nice to see you! I heard you'd been sent abroad."

"That's correct, ma'am. To Chicago."

"Mr. Vecchio here said he'd met you there."

 _Detective Vecchio,_ I thought automatically, though clearly Ray hadn't bothered to correct her before now. It occurred to me that perhaps Ray hadn't only been running away from me and my stupidity, but also from Chicago and police work and everything that entailed. Or perhaps I was overanalysing again.

Mrs. Hopkins was still speaking, telling me about her eldest son, who had apparently moved to Whitehorse to open a florist's.

"I'm very glad to hear he's doing so well, Mrs. Hopkins," I said.

She beamed at me. "I suppose you two boys will be wanting lunch?"

As soon as food was put in front of me, I realized I was starving. Moreover, eating as much and as fast as could be considered good manners saved me from having to speak with Ray just yet.

Ray, whose friendship I had taken so lightly, and been so willing to risk. Ray, who still seemed willing to consider me a friend even now, thank God. 

I looked up from my caribou steak, and found him watching me, a glint in his eye.

"What do you think about going to bed early, Fraser?"

I almost choked on a piece of meat, feeling the tips of my ears begin to burn. Surely I wasn't misinterpreting his tone?

"I -- it's a little early, isn't it?" I managed to splutter out, reaching for a glass of water. I took a long drink.

When I met Ray's eye again, his expression was quite different. He looked hesitant now, almost wary, and I must have been imagining what I thought I'd heard before.

"I mean, I guess you must be pooped after hauling your ass all the way up here. A nap might do you some good."

"Thank you for your concern, Ray, but I feel fine for the moment."

I bent my head to my meal again. When I finished eating, I looked up and found that Ray was done too, and that he was watching me, the wary look back in his eye.

"Even if you don't want to, uh, sleep, we should go someplace quiet."

Someplace quiet where we could talk. My stomach clenched. For one wild moment, I wanted to suggest something to put off the conversation: perhaps a trip around town. I could show Ray the landmarks, such as they were. He had probably already seen everything, however, several times over. And I had come four thousand kilometers to talk to him.

"Good idea," I said.

"Great." Ray reached for his crutches, and struggled to his feet. I repressed the automatic impulse to help, and picked up my knapsack and the key Mrs. Hopkins had given me.

My room turned out to be on the ground floor, tucked away behind the kitchen.

"I'm right across the hall," said Ray, who had followed me into the room.

He shut the door behind him, and sat down on the bed.

I propped my knapsack carefully up in a corner, and turned to face him.

Time to bite the bullet, as the saying goes. 

"Ray -- " I began, although I didn't quite know where to go after that. Blurting out a simple _I'm sorry_ seemed insufficient, but the idea of framing a more elaborate sentence was intimidating.

_Ray, I regret forcing my unwelcome advances..._

_Ray, allow me to apologize for bothering you with advances which, while they may have been to a certain extent welcome, were exceedingly ill-timed..._

_Ray, forgive me for my unforgivable behavior in --_

I realized my thoughts weren't even making sense any more. What's more, Ray was staring at me, his eyes narrowed.

"Aren't you going to sit down, Fraser? Relax a little?" 

I had been standing by the door, about three feet away from him. My posture may admittedly have been a little stiff.

I cast a quick glance around the room, but the only place to sit seemed to be next to Ray on the bed. Finally, inspiration struck. The windowsill! I sat down in the space left by a pot of artificial geraniums.

"Fraser." 

"Yes, Ray?"

"Fraser, come here." I was quite sure that was a note of annoyance I was detecting in his voice.

"I'm perfectly comfortable here, thank you, Ray."

"Hey, this is really unfair! This is not fair at all. You're gonna hop around the room from the door to the windowsill to God knows where, and I'm stuck here and can't chase you."

"I'm sorry, Ray."

"You didn't personally break my leg, you know."

 _No, I'm sorry for everything,_ I wanted to say. But the words wouldn't come.

Ray was sitting with his arms folded across his chest now, glaring at me. It was almost unsettling to see him rooted in one place, unable to move or even to sit in a sprawl.

"You came two thousand miles to sit half a mile away from me?"

I was confused now. Ray wasn't reacting at all the way I had anticipated. He wasn't angry with me -- that is to say, he seemed pretty mad right now, at my choice of seating, for some reason I couldn't quite comprehend. But there seemed to be no more to it than that. There was no sign of the anger I'd expected him to be carrying since that night at the Consulate.

"Ah -- " I caught myself rubbing my eyebrow, and forced myself to stop.

"Fraser, come here," he said again.

This time I obeyed. I was passing him, intending to sit a foot away from him on the bed, when he grabbed my arm with one hand. With the other, he used his crutch to take my feet out from under me.

"Ray!" I exclaimed, narrowly avoiding falling onto his plaster cast.

I found myself sprawling in his lap, his hands gripping my shoulders, and warm lips on mine. I had opened my mouth without even being aware I was doing so, and Ray's tongue was dancing slowly around my own. My hand tightened around the back of his head, and then all I could feel was the soft, slick sensation of Ray's mouth moving against mine.

I don't know how long it was before I came to my senses. I was doing it again, just like the last time, taking advantage of Ray when he was vulnerable -- emotionally fragile, even. I broke away. 

"Ray, stop. Ray, we -- "

I managed to scramble to my feet, and took a step back. I was gasping for breath, astonished, overwhelmed, aroused.

"Ray, this is not a good idea." I took a deep breath, and another step back, getting out of the reach of his crutches. "I don't want -- "

He looked absolutely furious. "Don't tell me I misinterpreted things, that night in your office, because that's bullshit. You want this."

I could not lie to him. In any case my body was doing a fairly good job of telling the truth all by itself. 

"Yes."

"Well so do I, so what's the problem?"

Deep down inside me, something began to sing and dance with joy when I heard that. I pushed the feeling down, determined not to allow my instincts to overwhelm my sense of right and wrong. It was only a few days since Ray had sat shaking in my office, his eyes screwed tight in pain.

"I was going to say, I don't want you to do something you'll regret."

"What, like hitting you over the head with my crutch because you're being such an irritating asshole? 'Cause believe me, Fraser, I won't regret that at all." He patted the bed right beside him, so close that I would have been practically sitting in his lap. "Come back here."

I shook my head, and put my hands behind my back.

He sighed. "Look, Fraser, I'm sorry I freaked out on you that night. I just -- Look, that's the way things went, and I can't change that now. Can't you just forget about it?"

I opened my mouth, and shut it again.

"You want to talk about this? Okay, I'll talk. You jumped me, I freaked out. You were being pretty damn freaky, after all. I mean, it was okay when it was just me thinking about you, eyeing you up, frustrated because I couldn't see your ass in those stupid pants..."

I stared. Ray had thought about me that way? I could feel my face begin to heat up again.

"But when you actually -- The problem was, it was like, I never really thought you'd do something like that. Down and dirty and all that. It was like you weren't you any more, and I was lying there with a stranger." 

I felt my jaw drop.

He sighed again, running a hand through his hair. 

"So yeah, okay, that was pretty... unsettling, and I couldn't get my head around the whole thing. So then -- well, this Girl Scout chick had given me her cell phone number, hinted pretty strongly that any time I was in Canada and wanted to come see her... So I give her a call before she leaves Chicago, and she comes over to my place. Next thing I know I'm on a flight to Quebec with her." He grimaced. "But that didn't work out so well. So suddenly I find myself in Canada, on my own, don't know what to do with myself --"

"So you went north."

"Yeah, told myself I wanted to get as far away from you as possible. When actually I kinda -- Okay, this is gonna sound really sappy."

I allowed the feeling of hope and happiness deep down inside me to grow by a minuscule amount, and waited for him to go on.

"Somehow I ended up in the places you're always talking about. Kind of felt closer to you, in a safe way. Close like shared experience, not like shared saliva." He looked up at me, an odd smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. "Though I ain't against sharing that too, now that I've got used to the idea. Just so's you know."

There was still something brittle about him, and I wondered just how much he had bottled up inside him, and whether even he himself really understood what was going on under that fa&ccedilade of calm.

He was frowning at my silence. 

"I mean it, Fraser. I phoned you, didn't I?"

I swallowed. That little voice of hope was still singing, deep down inside me.

"So then you took the Dempster Highway," I prompted.

"Yeah, then I started making for Inuvik. And you know what, Fraser, that Dempster Highway is one crazy place. Remind me to tell you the tale of my adventures some time." He folded his arms, and sat back on the bed. "Okay, your turn."

I was taken aback by the sudden change of direction. 

"My turn?"

"Yeah, 'fess up. Why are you freaking out now?"

"I'm not -- freaking out, as you say, Ray."

"So what do you call this then?"

"I merely don't think this is a good idea right now."

"Oh, and why not?"

I muttered something about the inadvisability of taking rash decisions when in a fragile mental state.

"What do you mean, fragile mental state? I mean, you're crazy all the time, but I -- " He stopped, and I saw his eyes widen, and then narrow again, and just like that, his calm exterior shattered.

"You're a fucking pain in the ass, Benton Fraser, you know that? Why'd you have to go and bring that up now, here?"

I realized suddenly that being in Inuvik, for Ray, had been rather like cooking dinner in the Consulate kitchen. It was like being away at camp, on vacation. Like being in a different world, where drug dealers and child criminals and dead children didn't exist. Now I had pierced the shell of Ray's holiday world, and brought reality crashing in.

"I'm so sorry, Ray."

"Stop fucking saying that all the time, will you?"

"Ray, you -- " I felt awkward, standing over him like this. I wanted to sit down facing him, close to him, but there was no chair, and sitting side-by-side on the bed would have been awkward. I compromised by relaxing my posture as much as I could. "Ray, I did something extremely irresponsible, at a time when you were in no condition to -- I have no intention of making the same mistake again."

"So you didn't come all the way up here to jump me again?" His words were light-hearted, but his tone was flat.

My heart clenched. I was going about this in the worst possible way. Of course I wanted to jump him, as he put it. Especially now that it was quite clear he wanted the same thing. But that was the last thing on my mind right now. 

I said nothing, and Ray groaned.

"Fuck," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. His hand was trembling. "Fuck. I thought I could hold it together long enough to -- "

He slammed a fist into the mattress beside him, and I flinched. His body was twitching as though it wanted desperately to be pacing the room.

I didn't know what to say. On impulse I stepped forward and fell to my knees beside him, taking his hand. By some miracle it was the right thing to do. Ray's hand closed around mine, and he took a deep breath.

He began to speak again, in a lower voice. "It's just, everything's all kind of mixed up in my head. Those kids and you and me and -- "

Instead of saying _I'm sorry_ , I said, "I know, Ray."

He nodded. He tightened his grip on my hand, as the rest of his body slowly relaxed. I knelt there, listening as his breathing gradually returned to normal.

After a minute he managed a weak chuckle.

"Guess I am acting kinda crazy, right? Running out on you, taking off with some chick I barely know, holing up in the back end of beyond..." 

"I really couldn't comment, Ray," I said, and that made him smile again.

"Look, let's get out of here. Out of the hotel, I mean. Can't we rent a car or something, you can drive me out to see the sights, see the countryside and all that? I haven't been able to get anywhere with this stupid cast."

I gave his hand a final squeeze before getting to my feet. 

"I believe that can be arranged."

An hour later, we were the proud if temporary possessors of a Dodge pickup. We stopped at a store on the main street to buy food and insect repellent, and then headed out of town.

We drove north until we couldn't drive any more, until the land became marsh, and broke up into lakes and streams. We climbed out of the truck and I took a deep breath, unable to keep the smile from my face. The land stretched out forever around us in glorious greens and yellows, flat and unbroken all the way to the horizon. The wide open sky was clear and crisply blue, and the Arctic sun was cold and bright.

Beside me, I heard Ray's sharp intake of breath. 

"Oh yeah. This is what I was thinking of when I was picturing you up here, not all those souvenir shops and coffee shops."

I turned to raise an eyebrow at him. 

"So I've finally convinced you that Inuvik is a bustling metropolis?"

He snorted. "Guess it is at that." 

We sat on a rock and ate sandwiches for dinner. I was very much aware of Ray's arm pressed up against mine. A comfortable silence had fallen between us.

Ray finished his sandwich and dusted crumbs off his fingers. He sat there with his legs spread out, and his weight against me, staring around him with interest in his eyes. 

"Soggy," he said, poking a clump of sedge with the end of his crutch.

I took this as my cue to enlighten him on the tundra's ecosystem. 

"When the top layer of permafrost melts each year, the water doesn't have anywhere else to go, hence the lakes, marsh and -- "

" -- fucking mosquitoes," said Ray.

"Precisely."

Before I could continue to expound on the more interesting aspects of the tundra biome during the summer months, Ray spoke again, "Look, I'm sorry, Frase."

"For what?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes I used to imagine we'd, like, end up here somehow or another... I never had a broken leg in the scenario. I thought we'd be hiking or on snow-mobiles or something, not stuck in a four-by-four."

I was warmed by the idea that he'd been imagining us here together. "We'll come back."

"Yeah." He smiled sideways at me. "You know, it's kind of cool to think of you running around here as a kid. Messing around on the tundra, getting in trouble, staying out late..."

"I wasn't usually allowed out after nine o'clock."

That made him laugh. "Even if it was broad daylight?"

"My grandmother was quite strict." I bent to gather together the debris from our dinner into one bag. Then I leaned back against Ray once more, and we sat there like that for a long while, gazing out across the land. 

After a while Ray stirred, and turned to me. His hand came up to my cheek, and his eyes met mine. I could feel his fingers burning against my skin.

Even as I turned my head into his caress, I was thinking of what I'd said earlier. That warehouse in Chicago seemed to be in another universe, and yet right here with us, inescapable. My thoughts must have been written plainly across my face, because Ray let his hand fall again, scowling.

"I might be at the other end of the world, but I can't escape it, can I?"

"Ray -- "

"I don't wanna talk about it, Fraser. It's nothing. I seen stuff like that a million times before."

I said nothing, but I didn't need to for Ray to read my thoughts.

He banged his fist against the rock in frustration. I winced in sympathy, but he didn't seem to notice his grazed knuckles.

"Okay, okay, that's true and it isn't true. I don't want to talk about it. I know what I want -- what I need. You gotta trust me on this. I know what I need."

He was close now, so close I could see every one of his eyelashes.

"I need this," he breathed, and kissed me.

 _Trust you,_ I thought, letting him in, returning the kiss. His mouth was soft and warm, and he tasted of mayonnaise and insect repellent. I brought my arms up to wrap them around him, pulling him closer. I could feel him relax against me, the tension draining from his body as I ran my hand over his shoulders, rubbing him and caressing him.

Finally we broke apart, and sat there a minute longer, leaning up against each other, looking out across the tundra.

Ray stirred, and turned his head to look up at the sun, high as a Chicago noon. "Is it getting late or what?"

"It must be about seven thirty," I said.

"Let's go back to the hotel."

.. .. ..

When we came to the corridor where our two rooms were, I hesitated. Part of me -- the most vocal part -- wanted to follow Ray into his room. The more rational part of me knew that I had to leave things up to him.

And indeed, the decision was taken out of my hands: Ray wasn't showing any signs of going into his room. He stood there, leaning on his crutches, looking like if he had his hands free he would be gesturing at me in impatience.

"Come on, you lost your key or what?"

I began to fumble in my pockets.

Finally I got the door open, and stood aside to let him enter ahead of me.

"Thank you kindly," he said, tipping his head to me.

He threw aside his coat, then headed straight for the bed, and sat down with a sigh. He set his crutches aside and let his arms flop down on either side of him, relaxing tired muscles. 

"So, how do you wanna do this? I'm not really fit for any acrobatics at the moment."

I stared at him, and barely restrained myself from gulping.

He was frowning down at his plaster cast. 

"Maybe I should just lie back or something, and you could sort of, uh, lie on the other side of me and..." He looked up at me, and his eyes were sparkling. "Come on, Frase. You're the man with the ideas."

My heartbeat had sped up all of a sudden, and my chest swelled with anticipation, making it difficult to breathe. Ray wanted me -- I was quite certain of that now. Ray was trying to work out the logistics of our -- of how we could arrange things. Ray said that he needed this, that he wanted it now, and I had to trust him. I swallowed.

His eyes narrowed. "What's the matter, Fraser?"

"Nothing!"

Something seemed to crumple in his face, but he didn't look away. He went right on meeting my gaze. 

"Okay, look. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be pushing this. Let's just -- why don't you come sit down beside me and we'll watch TV or something?"

It felt like something precious had been snatched away from me. 

"No, Ray -- "

He sighed, and ran a hand back through his hair. 

"Hey, it's okay. I can see you don't want to do this. I never really thought... "

The words he'd spoken earlier echoed in my head. _I never really thought you'd do something like that... It was like you weren't you any more, and I was lying there with a stranger._

"I do! Ray, I do. I do want it." In two swift steps I'd crossed the room, and was kneeling in front of him, my hands hovering inches from his knees. "I want you. Me, Benton Fraser. I've always wanted you."

Ray's eyes widened. "Always?"

I nodded. I had to confess everything now, to convince Ray that this was real, that this was really me, really how I felt.

"I dream about you. I -- I think about you." I could feel the heat flooding up into my cheeks, but I forced myself to go on. "I think about you -- when I touch -- " 

I found myself gesturing violently with my hands, as though I were Ray, so desperate was I to express myself. He caught one of my hands in mid-gesture, and tugged at it, pulling me up onto the bed with him. He was very close now, and his eyes were fixed on mine.

"Ray?" I whispered, and he nodded, so I leaned forward to brush my lips against his.

His mouth opened at once and let me in.

My head was spinning, but my body seemed perfectly capable of moving without conscious direction. I moved closer to him, and slipped one hand around the back of his neck to press his mouth to mine. He was still holding my other hand, and I could feel the calluses from his crutches under my fingertips. I stroked my thumb across his palm, marvelling at the texture, the rough and smooth skin, the intimacy of being allowed to explore like that.

On impulse I pulled away from his lips and bent my head, lifting his hand to tongue the hollow in the centre of his palm. I licked my way from the hard skin at the base of his thumb, to the delicate flesh between his fingers.

His hand was trembling under my tongue, and when he spoke his voice was amused and breathy at the same time.

"Freak," he said. "Come on, get back up here."

I gave his lifeline one final kiss before raising my head to find his lips again.

I was perched awkwardly sideways on the bed, half-sitting and half-kneeling. Ray couldn't move to accommodate me, encumbered as he was by his cast. He tugged at my hips and muttered into the kiss until I caught on to what he had in mind. I swung one leg over so that I was straddling his lap, my knees on the bed on either side of him. 

And suddenly, God, suddenly it wasn't just a kiss any more. I was _straddling_ Ray. He was between my legs, he fit perfectly, and blood was rushing into my groin.

"Mmm, better," he murmured, and I felt his arms slide around me.

Ray was warm and hard underneath me. I could feel the muscles of his shoulders flexing under my grasp, as his hands moved over my back. He was muttering against my mouth, words that I could barely make out, _Frase_ and _good_ and _yeah_.

I slid forward so that we were pressed up close together, craving contact against every part of my body. Ray over-balanced, and suddenly he was flat on his back with me sprawled on top of him, both of us going _oof_ at the same time.

I lifted my head and saw Ray's face, his eyes round and surprised from the fall. Then suddenly he was laughing, and I with him, a week's worth of tension rolling off my shoulders. I could feel his laughter vibrating through my chest. We lay there, my body covering his, and both of us laughing till we gasped for breath.

Finally Ray's laughter died away, and he brought a hand up to rest it on my hip.

"Hey, this ain't too bad like this, is it?" 

He wriggled his hips under me, and cut me off in mid-laugh. That had him grinning.

"Good, huh?"

He rolled his hips again, tightening his grip on me so that we were pressed close together. I had to bite my lip to keep from moaning aloud.

"Wait." I took a deep breath, then slid off the bed and onto my feet. I pulled off his shoe and my boots, and then helped him swing his legs and cast up onto the bed and lie back. He didn't protest at the help, just made an impatient noise and pulled me back down on top of him.

I was seized by a sense of urgency now, a sudden desperate need to feel Ray's skin against mine. So was he, judging by the way he was fumbling at the zipper of my jacket. Within seconds we had shed our upper layers, and I was kneeling over him, looking down at his bare chest. I took in the shallow depression over his breastbone, the tight outline of his stomach muscles, the light dusting of hair below his navel. He reached up and ran a hand over my chest, and I saw his gaze follow his hand. His eyes were dark, his pupils blown. I felt my breath catch in my throat.

I was achingly hard by now, but I didn't want to push things. I didn't want to let my attention dip below Ray's belt, remembering what had happened the last time I'd done so. I hovered over him, wanting to touch him, to kiss him, to reassure him. I just wasn't quite sure how.

"Ben."

I looked up. His gaze met mine, and held it. The feather-light touch of his hand slid down my flank, and around and along my waistline to the sensitive, ticklish spot just below my navel. I shivered. Ray was still staring into my eyes, and his gaze held no fear, no uncertainty, but only a question.

"Please," I whispered. 

He gave me that crooked smile I loved, and his other hand came up to join the first. Then he was yanking open my fly and his, and scrambling to push down our jeans and underwear.

I was lying on top of him now, skin to skin. I could feel his heart hammering against mine. Then he slid his hands down my body, and made me roll my hips just so, and everything else was driven from my mind. There was just touch, and friction, and the sweet, slick slide of my body on his. There was Ray's warmth and the sound of his groans, his breath on my skin, his hands pressing my flesh, as we rocked against each other. We ground together until my vision blacked out, and Ray went limp underneath me. I felt his hand on me, fumbling to touch me, and something inside me gave way. 

My arms turned to liquid and I collapsed on top of Ray again, shuddering against him. He lay there rubbing my back, murmuring incomprehensible words.

After a long moment I rolled off him, and we lay side-by-side on our backs, panting, breath slowly returning to normal. He let out a long, happy sigh. I turned my head, and found Ray looking at me sleepily. The lines around his eyes were crinkled with affection. He reached out and ran a hand down my cheek. "Okay?"

I nodded. "And you, Ray?"

He grinned, and then groaned. "God, we're a couple of teenagers. You didn't even touch me!"

"Well, technically speaking, Ray -- " I began, and shut up when I got an elbow in the ribs. I closed my eyes again, and just lay there, enjoying the warmth that was coming off Ray's body. "Next time I will."

"Yeah."

He fell silent again, and we lay there together. I was thinking about all the next times, and smiling inside.

After a while, Ray said, "So, you really didn't come all the way up here to jump me again?" 

I shook my head, even though he probably had his eyes closed too. 

"Oh no, Ray, I wouldn't have dared presume -- "

"You came all this way just to _talk_ to me?"

"I like talking to you, Ray."

"I like talking to you too, Fraser."

 _But..._ I thought.

"But -- " he said, and pulled me to him so he could kiss me again. "Sometimes we talk too damn much. Sometimes you just gotta act."

Some time later I got up and went to get a washcloth from the bathroom to clean us up. Then I closed the shutters and curtains on the window, blocking out the sunlight so that we could sleep in comfort. It was only ten o'clock in the evening, well before Ray's usual bedtime and even mine, but all I wanted to do just now was stay in bed with Ray.

He was still sprawled out on the bed, but his eyes opened when I touched his shoulder.

"May I -- ?" I indicated the key that was falling out of the pocket of his pants.

"Thanks, Frase."

I pulled on some clothes, and slipped across the hallway to his room, for his bag and the rest of his belongings. When I returned, he was naked, having struggled out of his pants. 

I shut the door behind me and stood there for a moment, allowing myself the luxury of revelling in the sight.

He looked up, and smiled at me when I dropped his bag onto the bed beside him. The expression was replaced a second later by one of guilt.

"Fraser, that reminds me. I, uh, lost your shirt, the one you lent me."

"I know. It's at the RCMP post in Dawson City, along with whatever else you had in that bag. I'll get them to send it up to us."

 _Us_ , I thought. We were an 'us' now. Though we always had been, really.

"Great," he said, and began flinging clothes all over the bed while he hunted for something to sleep in. "You know what, Fraser, I -- " He stopped short.

"What, Ray?"

"No, I -- " He looked embarrassed. "Okay, I feel stupid now. This isn't the best time to bring up Alex Powell... But I was going to say that even when I was taking off to Canada with her, I brought your shirt with me. I guess I knew somewhere inside I wasn't going because of some blonde Girl Scout leader."

That gave we a warm feeling inside, but all I said was, "Girl Guide, Ray." I began to get dressed for bed myself. "And you should write her a note and apologize for leaving her. Even better, a telephone call."

Ray looked up, t-shirt in hand. "Fraser, are you serious? You want me to apologize to the lady who was angling to take your place?" He was grinning, but he looked a little discomfited too. "Didn't that bother you at all?"

"I -- " I swallowed, thinking of the overwhelming fire of jealousy that had burned inside me when I first saw her photograph. "As a matter of fact, I have developed an irrational antipathy to Ms Powell." I stiffened my resolve. "But that is no excuse for encouraging you to be discourteous to her."

He relaxed, with a genuine smile now. "Already done, Fraser. I didn't just light out on her, you know. She guessed there was something up. I said it wasn't her, I'm very sorry, blah, blah. Kind of managed to admit there was someone else. I didn't tell her it was the stuffed Mountie who went around opening doors for her when she was in Chicago, though. She said it was too bad, she understood, it was just her luck." He shrugged. "She was nice, actually. After that I spent the evening sympathizing with her about this dumbass brother of hers."

He reached for his crutches, and made his way slowly into the bathroom. I sat down on the bed, suddenly realizing that in bringing him his things I had been assuming without any justification that he would be spending the night with me. He seemed to have come to the same easy assumption, though. He came back out of the bathroom, sat on the other side of the bed and began shoving all his clothes back into the rucksack, making my hands itch to stop him and begin folding. 

Instead I sat there watching him. It was wonderful to see him like this, the shadow gone from his eyes for the moment. 

"You all right there, Fraser?"

I jumped. "Yes, I -- "

He slid in under the bedcovers and lay there, looking at me with fuzzy eyes, like he was tired but also thoughtful. "Just hitting you now, is it?" He snaked a hand out from under the covers and grasped my wrist. "Me too. When I think that in my crazier moments I used to wonder if you even knew what a hard-on was -- "

That surprised me, but also made me laugh. If only he knew. Well, I supposed he did know, now. I began to fold the clothes I had taken off, still smiling.

Ray said thoughtfully, "It's weird, though. Feels like in some ways, I never really knew you."

I dropped the shirt I'd been folding. 

"Ray -- "

"Don't take that the wrong way, Fraser."

I turned to face him, suddenly alarmed. 

"Ray, I assure you, it was never my intention to mislead or deceive you."

That made him snort.

"I know, Frase."

"I'm still the same person I always have been -- "

He cut me off. "What did I say just now?" 

"Don't take it the wrong way."

"Exactly."

His lips were twitching and his eyes crinkling up in a grin that used the whole of his face. It reassured me.

"It just took a bit of getting used to, that's all," he said. "You know, most of us good folks in the US of A think Mounties don't even have dicks."

"Ray!" I felt myself go bright red.

Ray was laughing now. "Yeah, I know. Don't be disrespecting the RCMP." He tugged on my arm. "Get into bed, Ben."

I obeyed, and soon I was drifting off to sleep with my arm around Ray and his warm body pressed up against my chest, thinking I was getting a second chance I had never even dared to hope for.

A few hours later, I was awake again. I could see a tiny chink of daylight filtering in through the curtains and shutters, but the clock by the bed told me it was the middle of the night. Ray was thrashing about in the bed sheets, his arm hitting my shoulder every time he flung it out.

I sat up abruptly.

"Ray? Ray!"

The mattress bounced as he jerked awake.

"Ray?"

I felt him fight his way out of the bed sheets. 

"Sorry, Fraser." I could hear him breathing heavily, and then the rasp of skin on skin as he rubbed his hand across his eyes. "Just a stupid dream. Sorry I woke you."

I reached for the light switch. Artificial light flooded the room, and now I could see Ray's face. It was pasty white and covered in a sheen of sweat. His hands were clenched into fists, his knuckles white.

"God, I wish I could just forget everything."

I remembered standing, frozen, in my office in the Consulate, watching Ray suffer and unable to reach out to him. I remembered Ray clutching at me and letting me go again just as quickly.

There was no distance between us now, no need to hesitate.

"Ray," I said, lying back down and reaching out for him. "Ray, come here."

He rolled towards me, and into my arms.

He was still shaking in anger and frustration. I rubbed my hand in large circles over his back. It hurt not to be able to do anything more to help him, but at least now I could hold him close. I was free to touch, to caress, to comfort. 

Ray seemed to be thinking the same thing. He pressed into my touch. 

"Thanks, Frase," he muttered.

"For what?"

"Nothing. You know." 

I tightened my grip on his shoulders. He snuck a hand under my body, pulling me closer, and we lay like that until we fell asleep.

.. .. ..

We spent two more days in Inuvik, until a plane with enough space to accommodate Ray's plaster cast took off for Yellowknife. With me there to carry his luggage, and to carry him on and off the plane on our first leg -- to which he submitted with surprising grace -- our journey to Chicago passed off without mishap.

Ray was quiet on the taxi-ride from the airport, saying nothing except to insist that I come back to his apartment with him. I was easily persuaded, with the proviso that we pass by Turnbull's place to collect Diefenbaker first.

"How about picking up some of your other stuff from the Consulate too?" Ray said.

I wasn't quite sure whether I understood his meaning or not. "Some of my other belongings?"

"Yeah, I don't know, whatever you need in the mornings. Clean uniform, shoe-polish, starch..."

"I don't starch my underwear _every_ morning, Ray," I said, unable to keep the smile off my face at what Ray was implying. "In fact, I generally do seven pairs on Sunday."

Ray was grinning too. "Freak," he said, and poked me in the side.

.. .. ..

It was a cold, crisp day in October when we finally walked down the courthouse steps, on the final day of the Baring trial. I had sat by Ray as often as I could during the trial, as often as I could get away from work. I had watched him give evidence, in a flat, professional voice. I had held him every night, when he woke up sweating from his nightmares, insisting that he was absolutely fine.

As soon as we were out of the courthouse he seemed to go limp, tension draining out of his shoulders.

"You got to get back to work?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I took the whole day off."

"Thanks, Ben."

He had shadows around his eyes and looked exhausted. I would have liked to squeeze his hand, to give him a kiss that would show my pride and affection. I contented myself with a hand on his shoulder.

"Let's go home," I said. Home was Ray's apartment, where I had spent most of my nights in the two months since we'd returned from Inuvik.

"Home," he said, and I squeezed his shoulder.

That night he slept peacefully for the first time in three or four weeks. I woke before him the next morning, and lay there for a few minutes, just drinking in the sight of him. The lines of tension had smoothed out of his face while he slept, and he lay with his mouth open, drooling at the corner, his lips twitching in a smile at something he was dreaming about. The bedsheets had slipped down below his shoulders, and I let my eyes run over his exposed skin: down the line of the tendons in his neck to the smooth, sculpted planes of his shoulder.

I wished I could tell myself he was 'over' it, over what had happened in the warehouse, but I knew he never really would be. It was just one more memory like many I had myself, one more memory in a series that grew too long, the longer we spent as police officers. I was just glad it was fading into the corner of his memory we learn not to look at.

He stirred, and his eyes flickered open. "Morning."

"Oh dear."

"Hmm... whassa matter?"

"I was planning to wake you with coffee."

He laughed, and pulled me towards him, awake now. "Coffee can wait."

END


End file.
